O Poohcie, Where Art Thou?
by RichieD
Summary: What suppose to be a vacation turn into yet another unsupsecting adventure for our cowardly hero. Though that turns out to be trouble in itself for the people narrating it. Session O: First day jitters.


Oh Poohcie, where art thou?

By RichieD.

   (A/N: Short and sweet. This is my first foray into cartoon territory and I might not have the characters personalities down. It's something am still working on. But in any case, Courage is property of John Dilworth or "Dil", Stretch Films (which I hope to work with someday) and of course the big CN. With that, enjoy!)

We open with a dark hallway, barely lite by the outside light of the doorway. Footsteps are heard, the doorknob is turned but nothing happens. 

"What, locked! They told me it was going to be opened before I got here!"

The doorknob is heard franticly turning as the outsider turns to make his way in. The person grumbles at this a little more then his voice fades from the door. Quiet for a few seconds before footsteps are heard rapidly approaching the door and then…

**BAM!**

They don't make hinges like they use to.

The person, a African American boy of 19 years wearing a blue jean jacket with a white shirt underneath, black pants and combination b&w sneakers, dusts himself from the flying kick. He then collect the papers he was carrying that were scattered after the hit and continues on his way, though he doesn't look happy.  

"Sigh, of all the jobs in the area. The only one I could get was the most demeaning. I mean I love animation and all and am desperate for money but this." He keep up the grumbling as he wades and turns down the corridors before finally reaching his destination: a recording booth.

"Hmm, most of the systems are on, which me am not the first one here. Wheres…?" 

_SCREECH!  _"GAH!"

The boy quickly covers his ears as feedback fill the room, once again dropping the papers he had. After a few minutes, the feedback passes and a man wearing a red cap, a gray DragonBall Z designed t-shirt, blue jeans and white sneakers plops up from the controller booth, a sandwich in his mouth. 

"MPPS! MIME MOORY! MIME MIMM'T MEE MOU MHERE!"

The boy doesn't respond as his ears are the temporary home of the Liberty Bell at the moment.

*** A few second later ***

"Names Ultimatum, am the worker for the sound booth here. You must be the new guy."

"YEAH AM THE NEW NARRATOR, RICHIED. NICE TO MEET YA!"

"Ears still ringing huh?"  

"WHAT!"

"Hold on a sec?"

Ultimatum takes off the cap he wearing plus grabs a extra one from his back pocket. Then puts the open ends on either side of the boy's head. He then press down on the caps then quickly pulls them from the boy's ears, producing a loud POP sound.

"Can you hear now?"

 "Yeah, it sound like fireworks going off in my ears now. But I can make out your voice, anywho yeah am the new narrator here. Pretty much got the job instantly when I applied for it, they didn't even tell me what I was narrating just gave me a binder with the script and sent me out the door. What the big deal anyway? With a gig like this, you think you guys would be swap with offers from voice-over people."

"Yeah well that the thing, this isn't a official TV or movie or anything." Ultimatum said as he rubbed a hand behind his head.

RichieD raises an eyebrow at this "Nothing official? What exactly are we doing here anyway?" 

"Uh um…a mmmmm."

"A what?"

"Mmmmtion."

"SPIT IT OUT ALREADY!"

"A FANFICTION! A fanfiction!" Ultimatum shouted out. "Just stories made up by common normal folks with their own idea of a popular universes. Some of them are good mind you, but most…yesh! You can understand why we couldn't get anyone famous for this. No one in there right mind and a ounce of dignity would take the job, no offense by the way. In fact I was wrangled into this as you were but even when I found out I was desperate for money, so I went ahead, took it and waited nearly a mouth before they contacted me and told they found someone for the job. Let me just say I am so sorry."

The look on RicheD's face was a blank one as this new information rolled around in his head. He made no movement to this, the only sound filling the room was the Ultimatum sobbing. Finally Richie blinked and turned his head toward the engineer.

"Well, that explains…a lot and I have to admit, I was never too fond of the narrator role to begin with. So the way I see it, is that we have two options: We quit now, no questions asked and look for other jobs which won't be easy as this town has virtually nothing available or…" He signed before continuing, "…We act like the sorry idiots we are for being tricked into this 

And work for our money. What do you think?"

"Mic check 1,2. Mic 1,2. She sells seas shells by the seas shore. Luke I am your father. In Soviet Union, everything folks you, etc, so forth, and other random sayings. How we doing Ulty?" RichieD called from the booth to where his newly co-worker was messing with the controls.

"The equipment pretty old, this stuff hasn't been use since they made Midnight Patrol back in the 80's. Remember that cartoon?"

"No not really."

" And that should tell you how important this place is, add to the fact that 4Kids now owns it and is paying our salary. Bunch of cheap no talent dub…"

"Um are we gonna start soon or you going to slam everything in that wired mind of yours."

"Oh sorry, I tend to do that every once in a while. Anyway all system are go, got your script ready."

"Yeah but I haven't really rehearsed." 

"Ah don't worry. Its fanfiction, not like it will matter in the long run. Just roll with your gut and try to have fun."

"Ho yeah, peering into the lives of others only to interrupt every few minutes to tell what that person going to do next, sounds real exciting." RichieD said sarcastically "Hey what AM I voicing over here?"

"Um, hold a sec. I just gotta set one more thing." Ultimatum (or Ulty) moves to a knob called the CUV (Cartoon Universal Viewer) and sets the genre, setting, and time as per instructions from the clipboard. In the recording booth Richie in, the room starts to flicker on and off like a TV screen soon becoming nothing but white clouds surrounding RichieD at all sides. To say the least he a little surprised. "WHOA!"

"Heh, cool, neh? Guess they didn't tell you how we work things here. To get the narrator to work at full potential, he has to be right in the middle of the action from all sides. Make observing the situation better different points of view…or so I've heard."

"Uh-huh" RichieD muttered though he barely paid attention to what Ultimatum said as he look at the effect from the machine.

"Sigh, first timers are always the star-gazers." Ultimatum said as he put on a headset then push down a dial. 

SCREECH    

"GAH!" 

"Ah welcome back to reality, have a nice trip?"

"Am going to end up hating working with you, aren't I?" RichieD said as he rubbed he earlobes bringing the sound back into focus

"Eh whatever happens, happens. But before you spaced out, you asked what kind of universe we were working on. Well, it says here on the clipboard that it physical form, to which I mean the TV show, ended it run recently on the network it was broadcast."

As Ultimatum continued reading, the clouds circling the room begin to dissipate and a lone stretch of road started to come into view. Surrounding this single overlay of granite was miles of desert as far of the eye could see, only the occasional cactus sticking up out of the ground was the only sign of life in this patch of dirt.

"The show, while it didn't grow to the popularity of some shows such as Pokemon or even it's neighbor, The Powerpuff Girls, did gather a cult following which kept it running till it last timeslot. Hmm seems like a decent show"

 Ultimatum look up and notice that the setting had fully formed before the two hapless workers. "Oh snap! Its already started! Yo, Rich boy, start reading before they come into the view!"

RichieD was dumbfounded by this sudden outburst " They? Whos they?"

A honking sounded in front of him and RichieD turned found himself face to face with a truck (or what looked like a truck due to the back end looking like it was pasted together overnight) bearing down on him.

"oh" the about-to-be-killed narrator squeaked then jump out of the way as the truck rolled by, almost nailing him. After a few breaths Richie regained his voice "Wha…wha…the heck was that?"

"The folks you were supposed to narrated for!' Ultimatum shouted from his side of the booth though unlike RicheD. He wasn't affected by its surroundings "Before you started with the bewildered Q&A, know that am here too and I'll walk you through it as we go. But first things first, YOU HAVE TO CATCH UP TO THAT TRUCK! GO, GO, GO, GO, GO!"

RichieD quickly started in direction the truck, but as you can imagine running on two legs was getting him nowhere fast. As the truck started to leave his view it looked like his first day on the job was about to end just as quickly and pathetically as it had begin. But as he continued down the road, two figure suddenly cam to view: A weird looking dude with messy, wrinkled white shirt, shorts and sandals with black eyeglasses hiding his eyes (if any), and a some odd looking cattle. As RichieD, spotted them, an odd idea form in his head.

"Huff, huff, hey sir. I know this is blunt but it an Emercancey. I have to use your…um steed here. Do you mind?"

The guy look at him up and down, as if sizing him up then said in Asian voice "Heh, boy not of this land. Thinks worthless science experience a racing horse. Very funny, very funny big time." He then laughed with his voice rib biting in a very annoying manner before then said "What you got to trade?"

"Trade? Um well let see, a think I got something in my pocket over he…" The Asian guy suddenly found himself push to the ground as RichieD jumped on the cattle and rode off instantly. "Sorry dude no time to chat. The future of my bank account at stake" RichieD called back.

The Asian dude got up and dusted himself from the ground then look toward where the boy and his once-property where riding out of view "Hmm guy know more to this land then I thought. Took and grab, just like everyone else around here. HAHAHAHA, I like him…but he forgot the thank you. No manners, no manners at all, the fool."

It was then he didn't notice a RV headed for his direction and…well let just leave it at that.

*****

A/N: Ah the joys of entering a new territory, even though I haven't gotten to the characters yet. That'll happen in the next chapter so consider this a prologue and once again I apologize if I don't get the characterization down. Oh and as with all fanfiction, please review. Stand by for Chapter two (with the real story) soon.


End file.
